Well, yes, there’s a benign side to voting with your feet, but the kindness is mixed with conceit – the move projects an ostentatious display of discernment in the ovators (as if they were industry judges on The X Factor or The Voice). It also seems handily angled towards whipping phones out for footage and selfies. And it has a coercive edge too. Isn’t it often a passionate cohort in the stalls who lead the charge, requiring those behind to follow suit, in order to clap eyes on the bowing cast? The shorter and/or less mobile – the old and infirm, the young, the disabled – can feel excluded. And even the refuseniks can find it tough to stay stubbornly put.
So it can all smack of falsity. And this year has seen the West End reach a peak of showy disinhibition with standing-ovations madly greeting the climax of Nicole Scherzinger’s numbers in Sunset Boulevard. As much as the vogue might partly be about punters persuading themselves they’ve got value for money, on opening night, when press are present, it can smack of a DIY PR nudge.
So, it’s high-time we saw a return to inertia and a great reset, or reseat, moment in 2024. Protracted applause? Great. Standing in the presence of greatness? Allowable, once every blue moon. By staying more regularly put, though, we stand to regain our famous British reserve. And in curtailing the herd instinct we can better express our sense of self – and isn’t that theatre’s greatest boon?
